>> All,>> I'm getting a little tired of my roommates not knowing how to safely>> eject their usb-flash disks from my system and I'd personally like it if>>What exactly is ejecting flash media?

(That's when the spring in the usb connector decides it had enough and spits the ipod cable out. It is advised to wear a helmet to not get hurt by the HV usb device, e.g. usb mass storage sticks. j/k)

Ejecting flash media is what `sdparm -C eject /dev/sdX` does. In case of cdroms, that's eject. In case of zip drives, I guess, it will be - see above - unloading zip disks via springs (now these things really eject hard), and in case of mass storage drives that can usually not be ejected (so-called "non-removable media", such as harddisks), it disconnects them. Another stage after umount, so to speak. (And BTW, you cannot run `sdparm -C load` on these usb media again; at least I cannot for my memory stick.)